Last Thursday, Wheelie was extremely proud to host the first ever Montana Camber Exchange through Camber Outdoors, an organization dedicated to encouraging women's leadership from the backcountry to the boardroom. After several weeks of planning and preparations, the event finally arrived, and we packed the lawn with some badass ladies and a few supporting fellas for an evening of networking, eating, drinking, and speeches. These like-minded individuals were able to gather, meet new people, and discuss their passion for business in the outdoor industry.

Formerly knows as the Outdoor Industries Women's Coalition (OIWC), Camber Outdoors was founded 1996 to empower and encourage women in the active-outdoors industry.

When we first found out that we would be hosting the first Montana Camber Exchange, we plunged deep into planning mode. We even brought on an intern this summer, Iris Matulevich, to help with the planning and logistics for the event.

Leading up to the exchange we received lots of questions about Camber Outdoors.

"What's a Camber Exchange?"

"Oh, you mean that whole women's thing?"

"Why just women?"

"What do the speakers talk about?"

"Is the event free?"

​"Will there be beer?"

While some of the questions came off a little silly and fun, the other questions brought up another point. Not a lot of women in Montana know about Camber Outdoors, nor do they know much about the statistics about women in the outdoor industry. When it came time to answer these questions, we were thrilled to share our knowledge with others through this Camber Exchange event.

Camber Exchanges are hosted throughout the country and feature 2 - 3 speakers who give a 10 - 15 minute TEDx style speech followed by a Q&A session. These exchanges are meant to help passionate, outdoorsy ladies get together, network, and support one another in the outdoor industry. Camber Outdoors wants to help women that have a love for the outdoors to take that love and turn it into a career. The more women in the outdoor industry the better!

Thank you to all who attended the inaugural Montana Camber Exchange event! We had a great time getting to know you and are stoked that we were able to host this empowering event.

OUR FEATURED SPEAKERS

THANK YOU TO OUR LOCAL SPONSORS

A huge thank you goes out to Sweet Peaks Ice Cream, The Great Norther Brewing Company and Mountain Berry Bowls for participating in our Camber Exchange. We couldn't have done it without you!

THANK YOU TO THE CAMBER EXCHANGE SPONSORS

Each Camber Exchange has a raffle thanks to Camber Exchange and local sponsors.

A big thank you goes out to Bell, Bollè, Giro and Camelbak for donating some extremely rad prizes for our raffle. The event attendees were thrilled with their prizes and couldn't wait to put them to use.

SHOUTOUT TO OUR CREW

Iris & Ali

Chuck Finn

Thank you Iris Iris Matulevich for working so hard on the Camber Exchange over the last couple of months. You rocked it, seriously. We couldn't have done it without you. There's a lot of planning and logistics that go into an event like this, and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

Please enjoy this gallery of photos from the event. (click on a pic to make it pop up, and use your arrow keys to scroll through them.) Photos by Stephanie Shomperlan of Currant Craft.

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